Former Disney chief executive Bob Chapek has said he raised concerns with the company’s board about Bob Iger “weekly” during his time leading the entertainment giant.
Chapek, who was dismissed nearly four years ago, has spoken publicly about his experience in a new memoir, Behind the Castle Walls: My Thirty Years at the Happiest Place on Earth, and in an interview with CNBC’s Squawk Box.
He became Disney’s chief executive in 2020, shortly before the Covid pandemic forced cinemas and amusement parks around the world to close. Iger, then executive chairman, remained at the company and oversaw content initiatives including Disney+.
Chapek said Iger gradually began to reassert his influence, triggering a power struggle at the top of Disney. He alleged that he heard about lunches and dinners at which Iger was criticising his leadership.
“When I started hearing about lunches that he had and dinners that he had where he was absolutely trashing me, and I’d hear it two, three times in the same week, the same bullet points, the same talking points, I was like, ‘I’ve got a problem,’” Chapek said.
He said that when he brought his concerns about Iger to Disney’s board, he was told: “‘He’ll be gone in two years. It’s OK. That’s Bob being Bob.’”
Chapek was ousted almost three years after becoming chief executive and replaced by Iger, who returned to the role until March 2026.
“It would have been great if, like other CEOs, he acted as a steward of my new role,” Chapek said. “It would have been one thing if he was neutral, but to be actually working against me, actively, I thought was just unbelievable.”
